Lawlessness and moral confusion
are pervading America. Local police and federal law enforcement officials are
being publicly attacked, egged on by Leftist politicians and members of Congress. A Supreme Court justice, members of Congress, and college
professors have publicly confessed they cannot define a woman. Children are
being taught they can choose their gender. If that is not enough, there is talk
of AOC and Hunter Biden running for president.
How did we ever get here? The answer is simple. As a nation we have rejected God’s blueprint for individuals and nations, which is found in the Bible. In his first Inaugural Address, George Washington warned what would be the results if this ever happened. He said,
The propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the external rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained (Hyatt, The Book that Made America Great, 78).
Where are those “external rules of order and right” to be found? In the Bible, of course. Washington’s audience understood that this was a call for America to adhere to biblical truth.
Virtually every Founding Father believed that only by adhering to biblical truth could America ever hope to flourish. John Adams, America’s second president, expressed this in a letter to Benjamin Rush, another Founding Father, saying,
The Bible contains the most profound philosophy, the most perfect morality, and the most refined policy that was ever conceived on earth. It is the most republican book in the world (Hyatt, The Book that Made America Great, 80).
This is why no one was surprised when George Washington took the first presidential oath of office with his hand on a Bible. It was the American thing to do. This act showed his great respect for the Bible, for when someone swears an oath, they swear by something greater than themselves. For Washington, the Bible was the highest tangible authority by which he could swear to uphold and defend the Constitution.
Samuel Adams was one of the most influential members of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence who also served as governor of Massachusetts. He was a follower of Christ and based the right for political freedom on the Bible. He wrote,
The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, the rights of the Colonists as Christians may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutions of the Great Lawgiver and the Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament (Hyatt, The Book that Made America Great, 15).
With this sort of esteem and reverence for the Bible, it is not surprising that the first English Bible printed in America in 1782 included an official endorsement from the U.S. Congress, recommending it “to the inhabitants of the United States.” Andrew Jackson, America’s seventh president, gestured toward a Bible during a conversation and said, “That Book, sir, is the Rock on which our Republic rests.”
All these facts and many more led the authors of an article in Newsweek to declare,
For centuries, the Bible has exerted an unrivaled influence on American culture, politics, and social life. Now historians are discovering that the Bible, perhaps even more than the Constitution, is our founding document (Hyatt, The Book that Made America Great, 17).
Yes, the Bible had a profound impact on America for her first 150 years. But for the past 100 years, and intensifying in the past 60, there has been a all-out attack on the Bible. The American church has been powerless in the face of these attacks, which have led to the Bible’s removal from all public education and denigrated in the secular media.
America can be great again, but the American church must awaken to the priority and power of God’s word. Martin Luther found this to be the key in the Reformation for when asked how he, a lowly monk and professor in the small insignificant town of Wittenberg, had been able to have such an impact on the church and empire, he replied,
I only urged, preached, and declared God’s word, nothing else. And yet while I was asleep the Word inflicted greater injury on popery than prince or emperor ever did. I did nothing, the Word did everything (Hyatt, The Book that Made America Great, 160).
A visitor to America whom many, including myself, believe was the French sociolo gist, Alexis de Tocqueville, gave his informed view on what it was that had made America great. After visiting her great commercial centers, educational institutions, and governmental centers trying to discover how such a young nation had attained such prominence so quickly, he wrote,
Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power, America is great because America is good and if America ever ceases to be good she will cease to be great (Hyatt, Pilgrims and Patriots, Second Edition, 177),
America can be great again, but she must return to the Book that made her great in the first place. She must have a “Bible Awakening.”
This article was derived from Dr. Eddie Hyatt's latest book entitled The Book that Made America Great and Pilgrims and Patriots, Second Edition, both available from Amazon and his website at http://www.eddiehyatt.com.
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